You may post your Item to a page or website that has advertising, but only if you do not earn any money from that advertising. For example, if you post your video on Youtube or Vimeo and there happens to be an advertisement next to it, then as long as you don't get paid for that advertisement, the fact that there is an advertisement on the page doesn't break these Rules. But enrolling in the Youtube partner program (or other similar programs), where you are entering into an agreement to get paid, is not allowed. On a similar note, if you create and distribute a free app, then you can't earn any money from advertising in that app.

MLG and Rooster Teeth are fine though.

Update from Frankie

Originally Posted by Stinkles

These guidelines have been out there for months. How many of you are posting from jail? We'll get some clarifying messaging out there, but the legalese won't change, because it's legalese. We'll craft a path through the semantic minefield, however.

Originally Posted by Stinkles

As I mentioned in the Halo community thread, these rules actually haven't really changed, and even the updated and clarified text has been up there for months. I assume somebody just noticed this and posted this morning because it sort of blew up. This has always been the Legal status for the IP (and MOST IPs in fact), and as you also already know, nobody is being sued, or in jail, etc etc etc.

The language isn't designed to stop kids streaming their games, or covering their costs, it's designed to stop big companies from using somebody else's IP to run a business.

We'll put together some language that will help community people navigate this easily, and give people workarounds.

Unless the streamers are pirating the game then these companies were already paid.

Buying a game doesn't give you an unfettered right to make money off it. I pay for my cable sub, doesn't mean I can charge admission to watch the World Series (that's the point of that "expressed written consent" boilerplate they play during every game).

I don't think that putting Youtube ads next to a Halo 4 teabag video is something that MS gets upset about, but it's their right.

Thanks for creating a popular Youtube video featuring you playing Halo 4. With all those millions of hits you probably sold a few copies of our game to users who would have otherwise not bought it. Thanks.

Unfortunately it looks like you might have made some money off this video. So, uh, please remove it or we will sue the fuck out of you, your family and your cat.

How are Rooster Teeth okay? They're a YT partner. I bet the Lion's share of their viewers come from their YT channel.

They directly partnered with MS and got the rights for licensing eons ago, especially otherwise they wouldn't exactly be selling episodes on the Xbox Marketplace. And specifically for RvB it's probably evened up, they deliberately delay the release of their new episodes to be on YT for a while after it's premiered on their site.

This guy who just made $4.25 off of YouTube videos in the past year is fucking up our fiscal year expectations. We need to put a stop to this tyranny. Who knows what he'll be capable of once he makes enough to register Hypercam?

They directly partnered with MS and got the rights for licensing eons ago, especially otherwise they wouldn't exactly be selling episodes on the Xbox Marketplace. And specifically for RvB it's probably evened up, they deliberately delay the release of their new episodes to be on YT for a while after it's premiered on their site.

Sounds like Rooster Teeth and other direct partners are getting exclusive access to these videos, which means more viewers and ad money for them. Which also means partnering agreements become more valuable and MS can charge more. Follow the money indeed.

Gameplay videos with commentary are perhaps the most effective advertising tool a game can have.

WHAT? Don't be stupid, look at all the videos that Dayz gets! It doesn't even chart whilst a game like Arma II is first for months on months!

Seriously though this is a bit stupid; I think some people are worrying that single player content is being removed with some people following the story online (some do do this tbf) and sometimes deciding to not pick up the game or wait for the next.

Personally I think this is a tiny group of people, and they probably can't afford the game (will maybe pick up the franchise in the future being a big positive) at that moment; so trying to stop this is massively counter productive as we know for a fact that people see content they like and use that to decide if they want a game. Show someone enjoying your game and others will think they can enjoy it too.

Didn't realise they'd got rid Spectator Mode, is forge gone too then? Thats just stupid; it was the only 'excellent' thing about Halo 3 multiplayer (outside of maybe 2 excellent maps) and really added to the experience to set it apart from the modern war shooters.

Am slightly worried that some issues seen in some videos to do with things like view distances popping in and not being at all seamless or distant are maybe a reason for this. I just don't see why you'd do this unless your worried about a RE6 situation; to stop people so easily seeing and instantly agreeing with the issues instead forcing them to buy it to see if the reviews are true.

Ofc this could just be the worry of an RE6 situation by suits and NOT a reflection on the game, but I do wonder if wondering about how to deal with an RE6 situation has affected them.

It's their content being used, they can enforce any kind of rules they'd like really. As an example, just because someone buys The Avengers on Blu-Ray doesn't give them the right to upload scenes from the movie to YouTube and then monetize it.

With that said, there should be a better system in place. Work something out where both Microsoft and the video creator get a cut of the advertising revenue, that way everybody wins.